Beatriz At Dinner Dir: Miguel Arteta

0

 

Starring: Salma Hayek, John Lithgow, Connie Britton

At first, Beatriz At Dinner comes across as an American counterpoint to Sally Potter’s very English and very black comedy The Party (reviewed here) and also playing at this year’s film festival.

Both films take their cue from Mike Nichols’ Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? But where The Party presents itself in shades of black and white while its combatants joust with bon mots and fisticuffs, Beatriz At Dinner glows in a setting California sun as its cast of characters take their stand on the far left or far right.

The titular Beatriz, played by Salma Hayek is a spiritually enlightened Mexican immigrant living in LA and working at a massage therapy clinic with cancer patients. Essentially, she is a healer.

After discovering one of her beloved pet goats has been brutally killed by an irate neighbour, Beatriz is called out to give a massage to Kathy (Connie Britton), a well-to-do client whose teenage daughter Beatriz treated successfully a few years earlier.

The two women have a relatively close relationship and so when Beatriz’s old VW refuses to start, Kathy invited her to stay and join the dinner party she is about to host.

Kathy’s husband Grant (David Warshofsky) isn’t so sure this is a good idea as this is a business get together and a high-profile real estate tycoon, appropriately named Doug Strutt, and wickedly played by John Lithgow, is expected.

But Grant relents and all goes well at first as the guests arrive. We have Strutt and his (third) wife, Jeana (Amy Landecker) and younger, ambitious couple Alex (Jay Duplass) and Shannon (Chloe Sevigny).

Everyone is on their best behaviour at first, even if Strutt mistakes Beatriz for the help. But as the night goes on and the wine flows, Beatriz becomes less and less tolerant of Strutt and everything he represents. The final straw comes when he passes around a photo of himself straddling a dead rhino after an African safari. Beatriz throws the phone in his face and storms off.

As cut and dried as the characters are, and their behaviour is, during the first three quarters of the film, the final four is bewildering.

It seems that screenwriter Mike White couldn’t decide on an ending and so he offers up two of them. This resolution seems ultimately unsatisfying.

Having said that, the performances here, especially those of Hayek and Lithgow, are top of the line, even if their characters almost become caricatures by the time the credits roll.

Marty Duda

Marty Duda
Latest posts by Marty Duda (see all)